Antiquated recording devices

I work in a shop that makes one off custom records and we've recently moved to a new, slightly larger office space. What we intend to do with the new space is house a small museum of sorts of the history of early recorded sound, from Edison and Berliner up to the age of tape. Between my boss and myself, we've got a pretty good collection, but we're always looking for more. So if you know of any, hit me up? Especially early carbon era microphones or early ribbon types, any pre 40's disc cutters, unusual magnetic recorders...
We have: Edison phonograph, victor victrola, Columbia Dictaphone set, with edison shaver, Presto k-6 portable disc cutter, RCA disc cutter, Meissner phono recorder, Brush Mail-aVoice magnetic disc recorder, Webster Wire recorder, Presto 8N lathe, electro voice model 50 carbon mid, RCA ribbon mic, etc.

 

I have a Webster Wire Recorder..... Don't believe it works currently... But, I have several spools of wire that I would love to know the contents - might include some voice recording of long deceased father. Any suggestions as to how to recover/hear the contents of the spools?

 

I have a 50s portable record recorder, complete and works, only have 2 blank LPs, don't remember the make but I'll look and get some pics for you guys, my parents Wedding was recorded with this type on machine. BigO

 

Some more pics as the exhibit grows

 

Update on the museum: replaced the tubes in the K-6, still have to do the caps, but it works. Got a recording head for the Edison and some fresh blank cylinders, gonna record on them soon.
All the time and money has gone into this beautiful beast: Neumann VMS 66 mastering lathe. It may have been the one that cut your favorite record back in the day. Rescued it from a garage last year, it cut it's first master in 30 years in November.

 

I think this the same lathe in 1967 (they had two)

 

I wonder if Larry deSanto ever found the answer to his question. My father used to
trade tapes with my uncle and older cousin in California instead of writing letters.
How I'd love to hear a few of those again as my cousin was a pretty darn good
guitarist who was into folk and bluegrass music

 

We got our wire recorder freshened up and it has some school reading lessons from the 40's on the spool. Weird little time capsule. Theres no great way to transfer these other than mic' ing the speaker of the wire recorder and recording it to another device unless you want to do some modifications and tap a line level output from the amp which can be tricky with old tube amps.

 

I don't know a thing about this stuff, but it is fascinating and I'm glad that you and your crew are doing what you can to save this history.........Don.